Funding Education

The new legislative session already well underway and I have some catch up to do. I am working with the Utah PTA as Education Commissioner so my focus has been on education bills. That is no narrow focus by any means.

It is a well-known fact that public schools in Utah are cash-strapped. Education for Utah students is funded at the lowest level in the United States. What we are able to do with the funding we get is amazing! The lowest level of funding might result in lowest level of student performance but our students are doing much better than that.

The legislators point to a statistic that the percentage of Utah’s tax burden committed to education is at a level that is fifth in the nation. If this is a surprise, we should also bear in mind that Utah’s birthrate is highest in the nation. The surprise is that we aren’t investing at the highest level in the nation.

The State Constitution put education as a high priority. Revenues from all income taxation are required to fund education. So education funding is greatly affected by changes to the laws regarding income tax.

Of particular concern is HB 299 (Rep Dougall) “Tax Revisions”. This bill lowers the income tax rate from 5% to 4%. The impact to the education fund would be to reduce it by $53.8M (that is “M” for million dollars!) in 2013. Legislative Fiscal Analysts added that in 2014 and on-going, the fund could be reduced by $215M. The bill was amended so that the rate is changed from 4% to 4.6%. The Fiscal Analyst hasn’t recomputed the impact to education or the general fund but there will be still be a substantial hit.

Next time you hear someone say that Utah's low funding is a result of large families, don't believe it. That is a "red herring." If we really dedicated income tax revenue to public education -- without all the special interest tax credits!-- we could fund education at almost twice the level.

Without the support of income tax revenue, schools would have to turn to local property tax. The most hated of all taxes is property tax. It particularly burdens the older home owners on a fixed income and creates big inequities between rich and poor communities. No one likes to pay taxes but everyone benefits from a strong and vibrant system of public education.